


Heartseeker

by ultimateparadox



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Corruption, Dissociation, Memory Loss, Promises, Suggestive Themes, Transformation, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultimateparadox/pseuds/ultimateparadox
Summary: Felix learns the undocumented consequences of using a relic that doesn't match his Major crest.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Heartseeker

**Author's Note:**

> Written with intent for Sylvix but could be interpreted as platonic.

Demonic beasts stank like rot and putrid water. Up close, the rank odor caused Felix to grit his teeth and swallow a gag. The sounds of battle were distant, the rest of their unit striking at the other beasts, distracted from the two separated amongst the trees. The mountainous forests of Faerghus were thick and snow-covered, making movement slow, and he doubted the Blue Lions would be able to reach them in a timely manner. Clutching Sylvain close, fighting the worry over his dead weight and limbs that rested in wrong positions, he glared down at the beast cornering them against the trunk of a tree thicker than their bodies combined. If a beast was capable of grinning, it would look outright ghoulish with Felix’s sword trapped in its lower jaw, the sharp point joining the ranks of its vicious teeth, dripping bloody drool. 

“Come on,” Felix jeered into the top of Sylvain’s head. His hair smelled like the frosty pine of the woods and blood. He shivered. “Come on!” 

Someone yelled and it might have been his name. It was lost in the demonic beast’s roar as it took a single step forward. It bit down, snapping the sword, rolling steel fragments around in its maw until it spat them into the snow. 

Also in the snow, another weapon pulsed. The Lance of Ruin’s skeletal edges rattled like a beckoning wave. _Defend yourself_ , it seemed to call, though Felix knew it was his own thoughts whispering in his skull. _The strength to protect is what you’ve always wanted. You don’t have to lose anybody else._

The beast shrieked and sprang forward. Thoughtless, Felix wrapped his fingers around the shaft of the lance and swung it in front of him in an arc with a hearty yell.

A memory played behind his eyes: Glenn, older than them all, passing along tidbits of things he’d learned in his training. “Everyone thinks lances are just used for stabbing,” he recited, jabbing a wooden training lance into the air like he was at the river, hunting for fish. “But lances can do more than that. Watch.” He faced a dummy tied to a pole, rolled the lance in an exaggerated fashion to cause giggles among the younger children watching him with eager eyes, and then slashed the lance in front of him horizontally. The dummy split under the sharp tip, bleeding straw from the wide cut across what would be a man’s belly. “They’re very dangerous. You have to be careful.”

The Lance of Ruin’s edge opened the beast’s throat easier than Felix expected it too, overbalancing him and sending him nearly falling over with Sylvain’s prone form. In a duel the misstep could have been a life ender, but luckily the demonic beast had responded to the wound not with an attack but with a recoil. It curled up on itself, shielding its wound as it bled out black. While it was distracted, Felix lowered Sylvain to the forest floor, reared back, and stabbed the relic weapon forward into its downturned face, bracing his legs against its struggles until they stilled with its death. 

Under his gloves, Felix’s hands trembled, and he dropped the lance. It had been too close. He worked well alone, and some of the braver fellows in the battalions called him Lone Wolf Fraldarius for it. He hadn’t expected Sylvain to follow him into the thicker brush as he tried to set up a surprise attack. He hadn’t expected to be surprised himself by an unseen fourth beast, and he certainly hadn’t expected Sylvain to take the devastating blow for him. It had been too, too close.

Positioning his face near Sylvain’s, he was relieved to feel his breath on his face. It was shallow, but if he could get him to Mercedes soon he would live. 

The relief faded as he glanced back down to the Lance of Ruin. Memories of Miklan seeped into his mind’s eye, the man’s terrible transformation an unforgettable nightmare. He hadn’t thought before picking up Sylvain’s discarded weapon, only held a desire to save and survive. His crest wasn’t compatible with the relic, and his stomach dropped at the implications. How long had it taken Miklan to succumb? He’d had it in his possession long before they’d raided Conand Tower and the battle had taken more time than Felix had spent defending them now. He felt lightheaded, but he didn’t know if that was a side effect from the relic or just the jitters from the outcome of the fight. Too many variables and factors made his prognosis impossible to discern.

Someone called his name again, but he recognized it this time. He looked up sharply to see Mercedes trudging through the snow with her skirts clenched in his hands. A hair-thin trickle of blood snaked its way down her forehead, but she didn't seem bothered. “Over here,” he croaked. “Sylvain needs healing!”

Watching Mercedes’ approach, her hands alight with glimmering white starbursts of magic, Felix relaxed marginally, knowing Sylvain would be fine.

+

They should have let Sylvain die in the snow.

“Feeeeeeee!” Sylvain wailed around Manuela as she wrestled with him to take the medical concoction in her hand. White magic in the field had reset his bones and stitched the gashes shut, but inside Sylvain was still tender and needed rest and recuperation. “You’re my greatest hero! Save me again! I don’t want cabbage breath!”

“It’s not cabbage,” Manuela hissed for the third time, slapping his protesting arm down. 

Felix watched them with tired eyes. A persistent headache had settled behind his eyes halfway through the journey down from the mountains and back to Garreg Mach. He didn’t have the energy for this. “Take your medicine, Gautier.”

“No, my hero has fallen to the dark side! He broke his sword killing a beast for me, y’know?” He said the last bit to Manuela as he ducked her arm, eyes dancing with laughter. 

Felix didn’t correct anyone’s assumptions from when they were shuffled back into the company. He didn’t correct Sylvain now. Denial was no good to anyone, but he figured since he was still human, he didn’t need to needlessly scare everyone with the truth.

“So I’ve heard,” Manuela replied dryly. Felix didn’t take offense to her disinterest; he would be exhausted by Sylvain’s particular brand of being a bad patient, too. 

“Hey, idiot,” he spoke up. “With that performance, it’s only told me that you need more training. I’m not going to go easy on you even if your bones are parchment. Take your medicine so I don’t send you immediately back here.”

Sylvain gasped, dramatically placing his hand on his chest as if struck. “Well, I’d never! Although, it would give me another excuse to come visit with this lovely maid-UGH.”

Thankfully, Manuela didn’t rise to the bait and finally got the lip of the small vial into his mouth as he flapped his gums. “Take it easy for the rest of today and tomorrow. Check in with me the morning after and we’ll see if you’re in the clear.”

“Is there salt in this? Because I’m feeling a little salty.”

“Felix,” Manuela addressed him. “Be a dear and take him back to his room. I can’t really ask anything else from you, but at least let me pretend that he’s taking my advice to help me get through the day.”

“Betrayed by my nurse, betrayed by my best friend,” Sylvain moaned and groaned as she slid off the infirmary bed. Felix rolled his eyes and his headache reminded him that it was there. When Sylvain made his way to his side an arm flopped casually over his shoulders. If they both didn’t feel like absolute garbage, Felix would have thrown it off in the next breath. “Take me away, jailer.”

Huffing, Felix led them from the infirmary and down the stairs. Perhaps not feeling as garbage as he thought, Sylvain was humming lightly like he wasn’t one hard shove from undoing everyone’s careful ministrations. The walk was near silent with the evening as the students congregated in the mess hall, leaving only Sylvain’s humming and birdsong. Music was a hidden weakness in the fortress Felix had built himself into and he would never admit to how easily it distracted him, but privately, to himself and no other, he would permit himself to enjoy the soothing tone of Sylvain’s voice. It had been half the reason Felix had sought him out when he was an upset little boy, taking great cheer in the mannerism.

Dropping Sylvain off was less than eventful. “I’ll bring you back some dinner,” Felix said gruffly when they reached his room, looking away sharply when he caught Sylvain’s beaming smile. Calm no more, he added, “If I come back and you’ve tricked some girl in here to fawn over your ‘grievous injuries’ I will make sure you won’t have to worry about crest babies ever again.”

“You’re a charmer, Fe. Rest assured, I’ll be here when you get back. All alone. By myself. Cold, hungry.”

Felix turned on his heel and made his way back the way they’d come. “Shut up!”

Arriving at the mess hall brought with it a slew of scents as the students ate their fill. A fishy smell rose above the rest, and a board posted read that the special of the day was a fish sandwich. Sylvain would like it, but it looked like he’d be getting his cabbage breath whether Manuela’s medicine smelled like it or not. Fish usually wasn’t Felix’s first pick, and he found it mostly edible if a bit pungent, but he would eat it. This evening, though, he had the odd craving for pike that was so great he felt his mouth pool with saliva. He placed two sandwiches on a tray, grunted a very rushed thanks to the kitchen staff, and tried not to look too hurried as he made his way back to the dorms. He didn’t know why he was so hungry, but the sooner he got Sylvain squared away, the faster he could eat.

+

If anyone asked Felix what he was doing, he would have told them he was studying, tucked away where no one could see and interrupt him, before promptly and pointedly shooing them off. He would never admit he was hiding from his father. If he was fortunate, they wouldn’t cross paths at all.

“What are you doing?” The response already on his tongue, Felix looked up from the tactics book to see Sylvain standing in the mouth of the little nook behind the stables he had sequestered himself in. “Oh, man, are you doing your studying-avoidance trick? We both know you’re hiding.”

“I’m studying,” he insisted, shaking the book. It was true, technically, if he was reading the book. If he didn’t retain anything at all, well, maybe he just needed to study harder next time. 

“The professor’s looking for you, by the way,” Sylvain continued like Felix hadn’t said anything. “They’ve summoned all the Blue Lions, so it looks like we’re on assignment.”

His blood rushed at the thought of going out. He could hear his sword singing already. He squeezed by Sylvain while he chuckled out that he was simple. If he stepped on the toe of Sylvain’s boot on the way out, no one could prove it was on purpose. 

The Blue Lions were gathered in the reception hall, forming a half circle around Professor Byleth and, to Felix’s absolute disdain, his father. Aggression welled up within him, which was not uncommon, but the ferocity of it was. Usually he’d have to wait for Rodrigue to say something stupid before Felix felt the urge to smack his facial hair off. 

“My son,” Rodrigue greeted with a shallow dip of his head.

“Old man.”

“Duke Fraldarius has come to us for aid,” Byleth announced with a strong voice. “We are to march to Fraldarius territory within the next few hours to defend it from a spree of bandit raids. Gear up and ready your mounts. I’ll call up our allies for extra battalions. Dismissed!”

The Lions shuffled off at the sharp command, but Felix lingered behind. “Bandits?”

Rodrigue nodded. “Unfortunately. Our forces are spread thin currently, but I am pleased that your professor has decided so quickly to aid us. These villages and their people will look to you for protection one day, and it will do everyone good to see how capable of it you are.”

Felix sneered. “Sure.”

“Attending school with the crown prince, I’m sure you’ve proven yourself worthy of our family’s title to him several times, as well.”

There they were, the idiotic words that would turn Felix’s peaceful tolerance on its head. “The Shield of Faerghus. Still pushing that narrative that I give a shit?”

Rodrigue’s eyebrows rose. “Swearing is unbecoming, Felix.”

Rolling his eyes, Felix walked away. “I have to get to the armory and gear up. When we get to Fraldarius, stay out of my way.”

After marking on a map where all the bandits had struck previously, the march to Fraldarius had a specific village pinned as their destination, the most likely target to be pillaged. The plan was to trap them in the village borders, with Rodrigue and the Fraldarius infantry riding ahead to block the north and west while Byleth commanded their students in the southeast. Villagers were to be funneled west where healers and guards would protect them from harm. 

Bandit routing was old hat under Byleth’s mercenary tutelage. Only three men managed to give Felix trouble, two falling after a series of precise parries and one that Felix tripped into the dirt. “Fuck you!” the man had cursed.

“Swearing is unbecoming,” Felix replied with a final swing. It tasted like bitter chocolate on his tongue. 

As stragglers were rounded up, Felix couldn’t help but feel disappointed. There had been no challenge in the skirmish. It stung like a bunch of tiny bees under his skin, the desire to continue swinging his sword, a strong silver blade that hopefully wouldn’t break into crystal shards. With no more fight to be found, it was torment. 

Hooves on cobblestones drew his attention from his inner thoughts. Annoyance surged within; it was Rodrigue, and it was all his fault that Felix had been dragged into this waste of time and resources that couldn’t even provide ample entertainment.

He wondered where this bout of bloodthirst came from. 

“You’ve done well,” Rodrigue complimented with a gentle smile. Felix, continuous failure as a replacement for his brother, almost believed he meant it. “We managed to route the villagers to safety. We can finish the clean up, you should rejoin your classmates and return to the monastery.”

“Fraldarius takes care of Fraldarius.”

“Indeed. When I’m finished here, Felix, I’ll ride back to the manor house. Expect one of our riders at Garreg Mach to deliver something to you, soon.”

Two weeks later, one of Rodrigue’s men arrived at the school with a large, wrapped package. Inside, a brilliant gold shield rested, centuries old but gleaming like it was freshly smithed. Not quite a weapon like Sylvain’s, the Aegis Shield was a hero’s relic all the same, and when he held its weight in his hands he felt the connection to his crest like a snap. 

Memories of the last relic he touched tempered his awe. It was, in the wrong hands, an extremely dangerous and risky item. 

His left hip started to itch.

+

_“Slow down, you’re eating like Ingrid, buddy.”_

_“Whoa! I didn’t see your crest activate, how did you swing so hard you broke both the training weapons?”_

_“Are you okay? You keep scratching at your leg.”_

_“Now, you didn’t have to go that far. Take a moment to calm down.”_

_“Are you sleeping okay?”_

_“Focus in class, Felix!”_

+

The itch never went away. Some days Felix could ignore it, or he would just subconsciously scratch at it without even being bothered anymore. It was halfway through the Ethereal Moon by now, approximately a moon since he noticed it start. It was starting to spread down his thigh and up his side from the focal point of his hip, but when he undressed at night he never saw any rash, only the reddening marks from his nails constantly clawing at his skin. He applied a marketplace salve on it, but there was never relief. He just continued to scratch and go about his days, agitated.

That was, until it hurt. Felix was jerked awake in the gray hours of the morning to a vicious pinch in the meat of his thigh, followed by the burn of the itch. Frantically, he dug his fingers into his leg. Under the fabric of his nightclothes he felt something that shouldn’t have been there, and he launched himself out of bed to shuck his garments. In the dim light it was hard to make out, but he did see it, all the same: a dark scale the size of his thumbnail had pushed through his skin, damp with blood. Shadows under his first layer of skin dotted his entire upper left leg, foretelling more on the way. 

Panic seized him, making his legs wobble. He collapsed back onto the bed, hand clamped over his mouth to keep any noise sealed away. Felix stayed there for a long time, trying to breathe, watching the dawn pass through the crack in his curtains and light up the scale to prove it was no illusion. The shadows under his skin grew darker as they approached the surface. Painful pinching was starting to ramp up around the darkest one. He watched the scale pierce the skin with a sting as it met the air, sliding out like a needle until it could lay flat against his leg. 

Felix hadn’t cried in a long, _long_ time, not since Glenn had died, like the tragedy had finalized the chapter in his life where he could. Now, in the cage of his dorm, scales tunneling through his skin, he felt tears bead in his eyes, trying their best to stream down his face.

He didn’t know how long he remained seated on his bed, but five more scales had formed by the time a knock sounded on his door. “Hey, Fe? Are you still in there? You’re missing breakfast.” Felix jumped from his perch, darting towards his dresser to throw on some pants in a desperate act to hide this _thing_ happening to him. There was something in him that told him nobody could know, not yet, not when he couldn’t explain it. Condition hidden away, he wrenched the door open.

“I’m sick,” he claimed. There was a soft thudding sound that he couldn’t place in his ears. 

Sylvain looked surprised at the state of him, eyes bouncing from different points on him until they settled on his face again. “That’s...rare. Do you need me to get you anything from the infirmary?”

“No,” he said quickly. Sylvain was a fool, but he was a bright fool, and Felix knew that his performance wasn’t up to par. “I just...need the day. Take notes for me, will you?” 

Eyebrows pinched, Sylvain asked, “Are you gonna be okay?” The thudding had picked up.

“Yes,” Felix grit out. He had no idea, honestly. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Okay, okay. Do you think you want breakfast? I can grab you something before they close the kitchen.”

Felix hadn’t felt hungry since his rude awakening. He didn’t think he had any appetite left. His eyes focused on a spot on Sylvain’s chest, and he figured it out. The thudding sound he’d heard when he opened the door was a heartbeat, and after subtly placing his hand on the pulse point of his other wrist, it didn’t match his own. Somehow, he could hear Sylvain’s heart, and it made his mouth water.

“No!” he barked, terror filling his veins. He slammed the door shut, bracing his back against it. He was relieved when he heard Sylvain’s retreating footsteps, and with it the alluring heartbeat. 

Shakily, he returned to the bed, staring at his pants where he knew, just beneath the cloth, his leg was a wretched sight. In the corner, under a spare curtain, he knew the Aegis Shield was there, a crest-ridden mockery.

+

The Flame Emperor’s true face had the domino effect of revealing the Boar Prince’s. There was no joy in gloating that Felix had been right all along, not when he knew he was doomed to be something worse.

Felix wore two pairs of leggings each day. The inner layer would catch on scales that had advanced down to his ankle and across the small of his back. They were beginning to march up his spine. Thudding heartbeats surrounded him day in and day out, cacophonously loud during the days and a constant rumble during the nights. His meals doubled in size. When his nails grew long they began to curve forward into points like an animal’s claw. His jaw ached on the colder days and he wondered if his teeth were rearranging. 

Edelgard was the Flame Emperor. Dimitri was the mad animal Faerghus called its prince. 

Felix was the wolf among the sheep, a man eater growing hungry. 

He watched Dimitri and Dedue in the Knight’s Hall. The pads attached to Dedue’s arms were fraying under the strikes Dimitri threw out with the full brunt of his crest, lance shaft smacking off of them. If they weren’t careful, Dedue’s arms would break. With the Blaiddyd crest, Dimitri’s strength was disgusting. 

It was perfect.

“Dog,” Felix called out, causing the two to pause in their training. Dedue probably saw it as simple training, rather. Dimitri probably saw it as figuring out much force it would take to knock Edelgard’s head off her shoulders when the war reached them. “Take five. I need to have a conversation with him.”

Dedue didn’t move. 

“I’m not going to hurt him,” spat Felix. “But it’s private. Just hang out on the other side of the room by the mantle if you want, but back off.”

“Go ahead,” Dimitri encouraged as best he could. “Felix rarely wishes to speak to me. He will likely keep it brief.” He almost sounded joyful that he could go back to his crazed training so quickly. 

Once Dedue had retreated, Felix eyed the lance in Dimitri’s hand. It wasn’t one of the practice weapons. “Boar,” he started, then paused. As he was now, he had no right to pretend he was above him. “Dimitri, I have a favor to ask you.”

Blue eyes focused on him with quiet intensity. Neither had missed that Felix had used his name for the first time in years. “Do you, now?”

“Just like you, I am a monster,” he admitted softly, eyes dropping to the floor. “If I lose more humanity than I have thus far, I need you to use that Blaiddyd strength and kill me.”

“A monster?” There was curiosity in his words, but that was all. So absorbed in his imaginings of vengeance, he didn’t seem to care. “If you say so.”

“Make it a promise,” Felix requested, feeling like a child. Promises had meant the most to him when he was young, over the moon with Sylvain’s promises of forever. 

It wasn’t lost on Dimitri. “You’re serious, then? Very well. Felix, if you are ever as monstrous as _that woman_ , I promise I will kill you.” He was so cavalier about the exchange that it caused Felix’s shoulders to rise defensively.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“That is what I can promise you.”

“I wonder if you’re really good for anything,” Felix grumbled as he turned to leave. The blade of a lance pierced the air near his head, shocking him into taking a step back. 

“Farewell, Felix,” Dimitri bade him, withdrawing the lance back to his side. “Dedue,” he called over his shoulder. “We have work to do!”

Garreg Mach Monastery was wound tight in silence and nerves. Leaving the hall was both a blessing and a curse, because it freed Felix of Dimitri’s deteriorating presence but it plunged him into the sickness that infected the school. He patrolled the grounds until Sunday’s afternoon sky began to fade into reds and oranges, finding himself near the giant double doors that led to the cathedral bridge. He crossed over into the cathedral proper with his heart pounding, unable to believe he could step into such a holy place with the demonic presence in his blood, nodding to the attendants before taking a seat in one of the pews. With the devout filtering out, the cathedral was cavernous. 

It was ideal for a monster such as himself, if he was to ever pray.

He clasped his hands together. He’d need to file his nails down again, feeling the pricks of claws pressing into the backs of his hands. 

The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus had friendly ties to the Church of Seiros, and it was expected that the citizens would be believers. Felix wasn’t sure if he believed in the Goddess, not since the Tragedy of Duscur, and certainly not now when evil eroded him from inside out, but if she did exist and could hear his prayers to save him, he would try. 

He did not pray for the outcome of Edelgard’s war. There was nothing divine about men slaughtering men, and it was their duty to solve it themselves. 

+

Another Adrestrian soldier fell as Felix pulled his sword from their chest. Chaos surrounded Garreg Mach. Steel and silver clashed with ringing blows that drowned out the desperate chiming of the cathedral’s bells. The skies were flooded with winged mounts and arrows. Spells crashed against each other like fireworks. Screaming was the background music to their bloody clash.

An axe came swinging for Felix’s neck, but he raised his left arm to let it clang off the otherworldly metal of the Aegis Shield. With the opening presented, Felix stabbed his sword into the offender’s neck through the weak point in their armor. 

Violet trails swung through the air after Sylvain’s attacks, the Lance of Ruin cutting through invaders like a blade through fine silk. He looked beautiful on his horse, beating back those that would hurt them, and he wanted so desperately to reach into that chest and bite into his bleeding heart.

In the days leading up to the attack, he’d had dreams about it. They’d left his sheets soiled. 

As they thinned Edelgard’s soldiers between them, they drew closer together in the swarmed courtyard. “Felix!” Sylvain called, hand stretched out to pull him onto the horse. Before Felix could reach back, an arrow sung through the air and pierced the horse’s neck, sending her screaming and bucking until she fell like the dead around her. Sylvain shouted, foot stuck in the stirrup on her collapsed side. At his side in an instant, Felix pushed to roll the horse’s body off of him.

Taking advantage of the distraction, three more Adrestrian soldier’s rushed in to finish them. Felix glared at them over his shoulder and snarled an inhuman sound, baring his teeth, and they stopped, weapons braced in front of them. Sylvain gasped.

A lancer shoved his weapon forward in an unfocused, panicked strike, and Felix ducked the blade to grab the weapon by its shaft. He ripped it from his hands, spun it in his hands in Glenn’s flashiest move, and returned it like a javelin that punctured his light armor. His companions rushed forward to avenge their fallen third, swords catching the light, and Felix’s years of training abandoned him as he found himself willingly dropping his sword. 

Barehanded, nails extended in claws, he weaved through the swords to catch their helmets and rip them off their heads. A stab of pain in his jaw, one that had been building for the previous weeks, told him that something in his mouth had changed, and a primal thought propelled him into sinking his teeth into the face of one of the soldiers. She screamed, pushed at his chest until he fell back with flesh between his teeth. His swiping claws silenced her. The third soldier fled, but he picked up a discarded sword and tossed it after him, where it sunk into the back of his head.

“Felix?” whimpered Sylvain. He sounded scared. A hastily beating heart pounding louder than the battle made it so that Felix couldn’t remember why that was bad.

Sylvain had managed to free himself, but he was using the Lance of Ruin to keep himself propped upright and off his crushed foot. His heart raced like a siren song. The world faded away except for that sweet symphony. Felix shuffled forward.

“You’re, uh, you’re droolin’, Fe,” said somebody. Somebody? Felix didn’t know. 

In the sky above, a massive roar shook the earth. A white dragon descended from the clouds to land somewhere within Garreg Mach. 

“Felix!”

Felix startled. Like he’d been staring at the sun, he blinked spots out of his vision. He was closer to Sylvain than he remembered last, hands braced on his neck and arm. “Sylvain…?”

“Are you back with me?” asked Sylvain with something like relief. His heartbeat was still too fast.

_Oh._

Felix stumbled backwards, clumsy and off kilter. “Don’t come near me,” he murmured. He couldn’t be audible over the battle’s discord. 

Calls echoed around them; orders to retreat. “C’mon, Fe, let’s go,” Sylvain swallowed. “Maybe see if we can find someone to give you a check up?”

“I’m sure your heart tastes great,” Felix said, apropos of nothing. His voice was tremulous.

“Fe?”

“I can’t. I can’t go. I’m dangerous.”

“Felix, come on.”

“Get out of here, Sylvain. They’re going to need you.”

“We all need you!”

Felix shook his head. Imperial forces were invading from the south and Garreg Mach’s residents would be fleeing to the north. He would need to flee either west or east, as much as the idea burned what remained of him. “If you ever see me again, you shouldn’t hesitate to kill me with that _fucking_ relic. Do you understand?”

“I don’t! Felix!”

Shrieking horses thundered through the courtyard, fleeing creeping flames and glinting metal. Felix had enough time to meet Sylvain’s wet gaze before he launched himself at one of the horses. It tried to throw him immediately, but he held his arms and thighs clenched tight, hands fisted in its mane, until it carried him away from Sylvain’s frantic calling. He didn’t have a way with equines like the others, but the Garreg Mach horses were broken in already, and he could steer his stolen mount west as soon as they left the claustrophobia of the dying corpse of Garreg Mach.

So distracted by the breakneck beat of the horse’s heart, he didn’t notice his own breaking.

+

The only thing Felix had to remind him of his old life was an unusually pristine shield, gold as the sun. His clothes, lifted from heartless corpses, fit too loose, but they were better than the threadbare academy uniform he had long outgrown. His hair had gotten too long and he’d ripped it out in clumps once, but had since let it grow wild. Black scales consumed his entire lower body and most of his torso. They traveled over his shoulders and only his fingertips were still white. Half of his face had scaled over, and when he’d woken to that change and saw his reflection in an icy river he’d sobbed like he hadn’t since boyhood. 

Fresh scars cut into flesh beneath the scales from armed vagabonds that got in some lucky cleaves before he took them down with claws and teeth that were as sharp as he remembered his swords being. A larger one encompassed his side to wrap around his back from when he tried early on in his exile to hide at the temple of Lake Teutates and encountered a creature so large and powerful it had sent him into an animal state of fear. It had taken unkindly to his approach, referring to him as something Felix hadn’t wanted to accept since he’d handled the Lance of Ruin so long ago: demonic beast. 

He was more monster than man. There were blank spots in his memories of the last five years, where he woke up with a full stomach and a copper taste on his tongue. He would tremble in his hidey holes, staring at red-tinged fists and hoping he hadn’t slaughtered a loved one. Sticking to the west let him witness the Empire’s control sweep over the Kingdom like a rat’s plague, pushing the resistance’s supporters further east, and Felix hoped they stayed there. With a dead prince, however, he wasn’t sure what they hoped to fight for.

He heard them before he saw them: an imperial patrol scouting the back roads. Rumors of a hungry beast must have reached either Fhirdiad or Arianrhod, possibly even as far south as Enbarr, which was annoying as the solitude was why Felix had decided to camp in the area. If they were to disturb his facade of peace, he would have to take care of them. Even if it was just this small act, he could defend his crumbling country from here in the boondocks, feasting on a meal hand delivered by the Adrestian Empire. 

“How many wild beasts we got in this place, anyway?” Felix heard one of the men ask. “Bodies keep showing up by Garreg Mach, and now we’ve got a...thing...over here? _Allegedly._ ”

“I miss Garreg Mach,” an older man sighed. “The experience. Not the Church of Seiros. They’d be having that Millennium Festival this moon, wouldn’t they?”

“Tough nuts for the class that would’ve graduated this year,” grumbled a third. “We can bring back silly celebrations after we kill the old traditions. We don’t cater to no archbishop holidays.”

“Shouldn’t be much longer, I think,” said the first man. “We’ve been at this for nearly five years now. The Faerghus rats are losing ground every day. We’ll get them all, soon.”

Felix shivered in the brush. The Millennium Festival, five years of war? Time was difficult when he wasn’t even aware of himself, but had it really been five years of living like an animal? Distantly, he remembered a classroom full of students in black and gold, taking in the blue drapery. The Blue Lions and their professor made a promise to meet for the Millennium Festival five years from then. 

Promises were things he wanted to remember as his memory ate itself. They were important. Why were they important?

A promise to meet. A promise to be killed. A promise to die together.

He had to go back. He had to remember. He had to keep his promises.

Lumbering out from the brush onto the craggy road, Felix looked up at the approaching company. There were five in total, armed, but not heavily, as if they were foolish enough not to believe the rumors that had sent them scouting in the first place. They paused in their march, taking in his shambling form, and then with surprised shouts they scrambled for their weapons. He eyed the shining shield on his arm and knew there would be no true competition. 

“Which way to Garreg Mach?” Felix hardly recognized his own voice. When was the last time he spoke to anyone? There was no one to talk to.

Murmurs broke out among the patrol. “Is…is that a demonic beast?”

“Are they evolving?”

“It’s man-shaped. That’s so messed up.”

“Which way to Garreg Mach?” He asked louder. The soldiers shifted nervously. 

“It speaks?”

“It speaks!”

“An abomination!”

Felix huffed out a laugh with no mirth. “An abomination? Against what god? Or is it against man? You may be right.”

“It understands?”

“Which way to the monastery before I decide you’re much more useful as something else?” Swords shivered in gauntlets. 

“Man eater!” yelled the oldest soldier, brave-faced. The others fanned out behind him. 

Felix felt the cruel grin pull on his lips. “A mother and her ducklings, are you?”

Slowly the duckling soldiers began to step off in a widening circle around him. They wanted to close him in, and had it been five years ago, Felix thought they might have been able to kill him if they surrounded him. 

It was not five years ago.

A man to the left rushed forward. It was as much a true attack as it was a distracting feint, because behind Felix and to the right another man moved as well to cut him down. Swinging his shield arm back he caught the sword with an echoing ring. To the man in front of him, Felix opened his jaws. 

A long time ago a sword pierced a demonic beast’s mouth and did not kill it, rendering flashing steel useless as it broke the blade and crunched it to pieces. The soldier’s sword flew by his face as he dodged the incoming strike by throwing his head back before rocking it back on the axis of his neck, clamping his teeth around the flat of the blade. Rearing his head to the side he wrenched it from the soldier’s hand, spitting the weapon into the dirt. 

“It’s filthy,” he stated, affronted, into the stunned silence. “Do you even maintain your swords?”

Four armed men lunged forward, eyes full of fear for things they didn’t understand. Felix braced himself, closing his eyes, and when he opened them he realized he lost time again. Slash marks stung his arm and his lower back, but he was better off than the five corpses scattered along the road, littered in claw marks and bites. 

In a pack on the oldest man’s back, he found a map. If he kept walking the road he’d find a landmark at some point. First, he thought, glancing over the bodies, he should grab a snack for the trip.

+

The Oghma Mountains were more treacherous than the flat, forested lands in Western Faerghus. Upsettingly, they were also more familiar. Felix knew the way to the monastery like he knew how to breath, the trails pounded into his bones. Soon the skeletons of Garreg Mach villages that once thrived in the shadows of the monastery began to appear, ruined by war. Along with the villages, the sound of fighting carried through the decaying lands of Garreg Mach. 

Felix couldn’t always trust what his brain told him. Sometimes he was hungry and all he knew was that basic urge, and he’d come back to himself miles from where he last set camp. He’d remember he promised something to a bunch of people five years ago and headed straight into dangerous territory to squat in a ruined church. His thoughts were chaotically careless. Hallucinations were new, though. Never would he have thought that he’d see the last of the Blue Lions together again, fulfilling a promise that should have held as much water as a leaky cup. 

He watched them from behind the crumbling wall of a destroyed building. Areadbhar shredded men clutching satchels of ill-gotten goods. The arm attached to the relic lance belonged to no one other than the hulking form of a man that could only be their executed prince, miraculously alive and oppressively ferocious. Covering Dimitri’s back, weaving spells with hands seemingly made of flame, was Byleth. Annette and Mercedes cast their radiant spells to strike bandits edging for escape while Ashe and Gilbert picked off more men to the north. Ingrid and Sylvain came in on their mounts, an older, accomplished pegasus for Ingrid and a young, black stallion for Sylvain to replace the one he’d lost years ago. Noticeably missing was Dedue, and for some reason Felix felt something in his gut that he couldn’t recognize, not anymore.

The final bandit fell, Areadbhar stuck in his chest. His former classmates rushed to their prince, keen to reunite, and Felix wanted to turn around and leave.

“Who’s there?” someone called suddenly, voice high and alert. “I can see you there. Your shadow gives you away.” It had to be Ashe, a hawk-eyed archer after all this time. Felix was almost proud he had been spotted, if it didn’t mean he had to make a decision about what to do way too soon.

“Is it Dedue?” someone asked. Her voice was light and calm. Mercedes.

“Is it Felix?” asked another, hysterically hopeful. Felix’s heart ached. Sylvain.

“It is...it is not Dedue,” Dimitri hissed. “Dedue will not be joining us this night.”

“What does…?” Annette, sounding as melodic as ever.

“Come out, slowly!” Ashe commanded.

“You think you’re scary,” Felix called back. “Don’t you, Ubert?”

“Felix?”

“No,” denied Felix, stepping into the moonlight. He’d let them see the monstrosity he became. He’d even let them judge him for it. “Do you get word from Gaspar? You may have heard of the Heartseeker.”

Gasps warred with quiet contemplation as they took him in. A scaled over man with untamed hair and bloody farmhand’s clothes should have been a most peculiar sight, Felix thought. 

Dimitri stepped forward. His hair looked like it could relate to Felix’s. An eyepatch covered his face, but the remaining eye was cloudy with nebulous thoughts. “Heartseeker. Felix.”

“Boar. Dimitri. Coming back from the dead now?”

“Felix!” Ingrid cried, hands folded over her mouth, openly in tears. “Felix, you're one to talk! What happened to you?”

Sylvain, silent next to her, slid off his horse to step just behind Dimitri. His face was blank, but his eyes were alive. 

Ashe stepped forward as well, an arrow held pinched against his bowstring, cautious. “Heartseeker? I’ve heard that name.”

“You’re smarter than your optimism makes you look, Ashe. You know what I do.”

“Ashe?” asked Ingrid. She was shaking in her saddle.

“You kill men,” Ashe stated plainly. “They find the bodies with holes where their hearts should be. Why? What happened to you to turn you into... _this?_ ”

“We’re all killers here,” Felix said without inflection. “Or did these bandits not count? Don’t preach at me.”

“What do you do with the hearts, Felix?” Ashe asked, raising his bow. The Blue Lions flinched back at his display of aggression. Felix didn’t blink.

“I ate them. Those bandits were humans, Ashe, but that doesn’t apply to me. Not anymore.”

“What did you do, Felix?” Sylvain finally asked. He’d grown taller, but his face was ashen and thin like time had been brutal to him.

“Miklan and I have more in common than I ever thought,” he answered bitterly just to see the satisfaction of making Sylvain flinch. “Saved your life with your pretty little lance.” Felix watched Sylvain’s eyes shutter as the implications flew through his mind. The others went pale and tense. “There won’t be much of me left, soon. Return this to my old man before I can’t even remember how to unclasp it.” He reached for the clasps on the Aegis Shield, tossing it into the thin badlands between him and his old classmates. Maybe, once, they were friends. 

“This is what you meant,” Dimitri spoke gravely. “When you asked me to make you that promise.”

Felix nodded. 

“You are a monster.”

He nodded again.

“So be it,” Dimitri stood straight and tall. “Have you any last words?”

“Huh?” Sylvain asked, turning aghast to the man he was realizing was more beast than prince. Felix wondered how many more people Sylvain would have to watch lose their humanity.

“Don’t tell my father," requested Felix. "Let him think I did something heroic in my dying moments. Let him die happy.”

“Your death will be written in the history books. Good-bye, Felix.”

“W-wait, stop!” Annette cried, grabbing a handful of Dimitri’s grimey cloak. “What are you doing?”

Poor Annette hadn’t quite realized that she was pleading with the Boar instead of the boy from five years ago. It took a single backhand to Annette’s side to fling her bodily from his person. “Will you not allow a man to die with the remains of himself?”

“Dimitri,” warned Byleth.

“Do it, animal!”

“Felix!”

Areadbhar speared forward on Dimitri’s trust, the night flashing bright with the activation of the Blaiddyd crest. It would obliterate him.

The sense of danger washed away Felix’s thoughts. Detached, he felt himself roll away from Areadbhar’s trajectory. Snarling, he shot for the prince’s throat with gnashing teeth strong enough to dent metal. Five years hadn’t slowed Dimitri down, and he threw his cloak around to catch the attack and disorient Felix. Fabric threads weren’t anywhere near as filling as heartstrings, so Felix spat the mouthful of filth out and slinked back to put distance between them.

Dimitri’s wrist jerked and Areadbhar was coming again. Felix raised his arm to block with the Aegis Shield, but he’d forgotten that he’d just surrendered it. Trying to make up for his mistake, he backpedaled. The ancient lance clipped into his shield arm and Felix screeched, the last of his awareness slipping away.

Waking from one of his beastly blackouts usually wasn’t loud, as corpses didn’t yell. So when he could feel himself return to his own skin, he was shocked to hear an acute metallic clang. He felt battered and bruised all over where he lay face down, eating dirt, black blood dripping from his lips. A hand carded through his disheveled locks. Strained humming met his ears.

Looking up, Felix’s eyes widened. An equally roughened Dimitri was bearing down with his relic, but a familiar golden shield strapped to an arm had stopped the killing blow. It was being held by the man crouched beside him, smiling softly and worriedly, humming gently like he had so many years ago to calm Felix down.

Sylvain had the Aegis Shield strapped to his arm. “W-wait...no,” Felix gasped. His chest hurt. _His heart hurt._ He couldn't name the feeling carved into him deeper than any scared man's weapon. “That’s not...you don’t…the crest, Sylvain!”

“We made a promise,” Sylvain huffed, cheeks flushed with exertion as he held Dimitri off. “That we’d die together. But, you know, I don’t think we need to die today.”

“You weren’t supposed to...end up like me!”

Sylvain’s smile was the gentlest Felix could remember. His memory grew worse by the day, but he was so sure that he’d never seen that expression before. “I’ll follow wherever you go, Felix.”

A sharp whistle from Sylvain sent the black stallion galloping towards them. With a shove of his shield arm, Sylvain bounced Areadbhar away, rolling himself and Felix clear from any retaliatory strikes. He deposited Felix onto the back of the horse like a sack, swinging into the saddle expertly after. A sharp kick sent them flying down the mountain trails away from Garreg Mach, the wind washing out the sounds of the Blue Lions behind them. 

“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” Sylvain assured him. “Until the day we die, I’ll be here for you. Try not to leave me behind again, okay?”

Felix, aching and tired, heard Sylvain’s heartbeat. Strangely, it wasn’t tantalizing in the slightest. “You’re...stupid,” he gasped, when he realized that it was only the hearts of humans he desired, and what that meant for Sylvain. “You’re so stupid.”

Sylvain beamed.

**Author's Note:**

> I took the realization of feelings Oh and turned it into a bad thing sorry. Twitter me @hayley0wns
> 
> [Art!](https://twitter.com/fox_mitt/status/1234960052588548102?s=20)


End file.
